Survey results are in: test kit use is associated with safer-use practices

An online and offline survey of 761 submissions collected in 2025 and 2026 found that prior drug-checking experience was associated with more reported harm-reduction practices. A majority of respondents had not previously used drug checking; those with prior experience more often reported additional safer-use strategies. Use of risk-reduction methods was associated with experienced harms, despite continuing risky behaviours. In the small, self-selected follow-up, 65% of tested samples with recorded ingestion data were reportedly ingested and 35% were not.

Introduction

The Drug Checking Community Report (DCCR2025) is a project launched in 2025 to explore the role of drug-checking test kits as a harm-reduction strategy. The survey was announced publicly in PRO Test’s call for participants .

Drug checking is increasingly recognised as a public-health and harm-reduction approach. Brunt’s 2017 EMCDDA background paper describes its role in tailored prevention and risk communication, and the EUDA drug-checking overview now places it within a wider public-health response. Yet the evidence is weighted towards staffed services; comparatively little research addresses how people use test kits at home for psychoactive-substance analysis.

Winstock, Wolff and Ramsey (2001) questioned whether simple colour-reagent kits could create an artificial sense of safety and thereby encourage drug use. DCCR2025 addresses that behavioural question: whether prior test-kit use is associated with safer-use practices, reported harms and decisions after testing.

Murray et al. (2003) examined the analytical limitations of a particular three-reagent kit, rather than user behaviour. Since then, home-testing practice has expanded to include multi-reagent approaches, test strips and newer reference material; these methods can be more comprehensive than the model Murray evaluated, but they remain presumptive screening tools. DCCR2025 does not evaluate chemical accuracy; it focuses on how people use test kits and the behaviours that accompany their use.

This exploratory report describes a community survey collected through an online form and offline events. It asks whether prior drug-checking experience and reported substance use are associated with harm-reduction practices, harms, motivations to test, and the decisions respondents report after receiving a result.

Sources for this section. [1] Brunt (2017) · [2] EUDA overview · [3] Winstock et al. (2001) · [4] Murray et al. (2003) · [5] Alonzo (2022) . Full citations appear in References.

Methodology

DCCR2025 consists of an online and offline, two-part community survey. A total of 761 Survey 1 submissions were collected from 2025-04-04 to 2026-01-29 and reconciled to 737 deduplicated respondents. Survey 1 covers substance use, harms, safer-use practices, drug checking and expectations. Survey 2 is an optional follow-up on testing outcomes, reported here per tested sample.

Survey 1 had 14 numbered questions, including conditional follow-ups, and Survey 2 had seven question types; core items were single- or multiple-choice, with limited free entry for country, typical amount/route, test-result description and the optional contest answer.

Offline Survey 1 collection took place at music festivals in summer 2025. Jerzy Afanasjew (PRO Test) collected the LAS survey with the harm-reduction project Bezpieczna Przestrzeń; SIN (Społeczna Inicjatywa Narkopolityki), a non-profit organisation, collected further offline responses in Poland. We thank both organisations and the festival organisers who made in-person collection possible. 47 retained respondents came through offline/event-based collection.

The survey was available online throughout the collection period, following PRO Test’s public call for participants and invitations to PRO Test customers, including printed fliers. 690 retained respondents came through the online route.

Every participant was offered a free single-use identification test. A simple contest question at the end of the survey gave one participant who completed both surveys the opportunity to win a full laboratory-analysis service.

Challenges

Several question descriptions changed during fieldwork, one English-language Survey 2 question was defective, and a Raspberry Pi connection problem affected offline collection at one event. Survey data collected in multiple MySQL databases were merged and reconciled. At this exploratory stage, these issues have not been judged to change the overall interpretation; further details are provided later in this report.

Privacy and data handling

A participant-created code was used only to reconnect Survey 1 and follow-up responses. No names or contact details were collected. The online form did not require JavaScript, and printed fliers supported participation without contact collection. Although PRO Test customers were invited to take part, no customer data were collected or used to match a respondent to a customer record.

Results are descriptive and exploratory. The full research backend applies a minimum-cell rule; this article suppresses any category with fewer than five respondents. Personal codes, dates of birth, free text and respondent-level records are absent from this article app.

Dr Jan Szczypiński, earlier announced as a co-author of this research, has, owing to other obligations, remained in a strictly advisory position. We gratefully acknowledge his support.

Funding. DCCR2025 was self-funded by Chemical Safety sp. z o.o.

Summary

Harm-reduction practices appeared in coherent sets rather than as isolated tips. The five "avoid mixing with …" practices moved together (phi 0.61 to 0.69), while hydration, researching substances, planning and starting with a small dose formed a second cluster (0.52 to 0.60).

Most respondents had not previously used drug checking (55%; 408 of 737). Those with prior experience reported 8.4 safer-use practices on average, compared with 5.6 among those without prior experience. The strongest single relationship was with checking ingredients before use (69% versus 21%; phi 0.47); prior testing also coincided with more researching, planning and other safer-use practices.

Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence of an association between prior test-kit use and employing more safer-use guidelines. They do not show that testing caused those practices: prior testers also reported more substances used (10.7 versus 8.6) and more short-term harms (5.0 versus 4.0), so this survey cannot distinguish learning through testing from differences in exposure, experience or risk awareness.

The next step is to examine these patterns in more detail. Polish and English-language respondents differed in motivations, quality criteria and reported sources, partly alongside different recruitment routes. Further follow-up should link what people expect and want to test with chemical results, while retaining the distinction between self-reported decisions and laboratory-confirmed findings.

Data quality and limitations

• Self-selected respondents and mixed online/offline recruitment limit generalisability.
• The personal code is a weak identifier; deduplication and anomalous codes are documented in the research backend.
• The English form did not display the drug-checking-frequency question.
• Survey 2 has few, self-selected follow-up respondents and samples.
• Additional survey-version and fieldwork issues remain to be documented before publication.

Declarations

Competing interests. Jerzy Afanasjew is co-owner of PRO Test and Chemical Safety sp. z o.o., a manufacturer of drug-checking test kits. PRO Test was involved in recruitment and survey delivery. The author will complete the detailed study-role statement before publication.

Funding. DCCR2025 was self-funded by Chemical Safety sp. z o.o.

Ethics and privacy. A participant-created code linked Survey 1 and follow-up responses; no names or contact details were collected. The online survey did not require JavaScript, and printed fliers enabled contact-free recruitment. PRO Test customers were invited to participate, but no customer data were collected or used to match respondents to customer records. The article app contains aggregated results only and does not ship linking codes, dates of birth, free text, or respondent-level records.

Data availability. Publication tables are derived from the private research backend. Public release of underlying records is not planned.

References

1. Brunt TM. Drug checking as a harm reduction tool for recreational drug users: opportunities and challenges. EMCDDA background paper; 2017. EUDA record .
2. European Union Drugs Agency. Drug checking. EUDA topic overview . Accessed 2026.
3. Winstock AR, Wolff K, Ramsey J. Ecstasy pill testing: harm minimization gone too far? Addiction. 2001;96:1139–1148. doi:10.1046/j.1360-0443.2001.96811397.x .
4. Murray RA, Doering PL, Boothby LA, et al. Putting an Ecstasy Test Kit to the Test: Harm Reduction or Harm Induction? Pharmacotherapy. 2003;23:1238–1244. doi:10.1592/phco.23.12.1238.32704 .
5. Alonzo CA. Portable testing techniques for the analysis of drug materials. WIREs Forensic Science. 2022;4:e1461. doi:10.1002/wfs2.1461 .
6. Maghsoudi N, Tanguay J, Scarfone K, et al. Drug checking services for people who use drugs: a systematic review. Addiction. 2022;117:532–544. doi:10.1111/add.15734 .
7. Peacock A, et al. Profile and correlates of colorimetric reagent kit use among people who use ecstasy/MDMA and other illegal stimulants in Australia. International Journal of Drug Policy. 2021;97:103334. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103334 .